The friendly little Loxley Farm Market stands along one of those curves on Highway 59 as it snakes through town, and it's kind of easy to miss if you don't know it's there. Enough people have found the place, many of them stopping in again and again, which has kept the family business running strong for 30 years.

When Alescia Forland opened the farm stand in 1995, she brought a lot of experience to the table. Though she married into the family, the Forland name had already been associated with farming in the area for almost a century. Her daughter, Michelle, is firmly rooted in the family business as a fourth-generation farmer, and Michelle's two young girls are familiar, happy faces at the market, too. So it wouldn't be a surprise if little Sarah Jean and Maggie Mae follow their mom and grandmother into the trade of selling vegetables and fruits grown in the rich Baldwin County dirt. 

From their vantage point along Loxley's busiest road, they can see a steady flow of cars and trucks passing day after day. They've also seen many changes in the wants and needs of a growing customer base. 

"Most of our business was tourists when we first opened because Baldwin County was still very agricultural," Alescia says. "Back then, almost everybody knew a farmer or lived on a farm themselves, so they didn't have to go looking for fresh produce."

In the years since, much of the flat, level terrain that had long been farmland has been developed with businesses and homes. There's still lots of farming in the area, but Alescia notes that most of what's being grown locally today is for wholesale markets rather than for their neighbors' dinner tables.

Fortunately for the Forlands, many of those new residents who  are part of the population boom are younger and more health-conscious, interested in knowing exactly where their food comes from. She traces this new sense of awareness in part to the COVID pandemic, which led to another trend that's keeping her busy running the roads. 

"That's when we started home delivery," says Alescia. "When people couldn't actually get out, and then when there were shortages because of issues with the supply chain, they were relying more on people like us that had fresh food and could get it to them."

So a big part of Alescia's busy routine is making these deliveries around the county. The orders come in online or over the phone, and she loads up her white van with boxes of fruits and vegetables and some of the many specialty food items they carry. She also finds time to run two different farmers' markets — the Coastal Alabama Farmers and Fishermens Market is every Saturday in Foley, and, in warmer months, she sets up as a vendor at the Fairhope Outdoor Farmers Market. 

The Forlands grow a lot of the fresh food for these ventures themselves on land that has been in the family since 1904, when Tormod and Kristina Forland arrived from Norway and bought 100 acres. They were part of a small wave of other Scandinavians and Czechs that populated the Silverhill area in those days. Alescia grew up in Mobile, and when her family relocated across the bay in 1975, they coincidentally moved into the very same house that had been the Forlands' original home.

The family farmland is off County Road 54 in a rural area that is not quite Loxley, Silverhill or Robertsdale. "I call it the Tri-Cities Area," Alescia jokes, and Michelle smiles along with her. It might be easier to list what they don't grow there. There's a pecan orchard, and in the spring and summer, its  bounty includes squash, zucchini, peas, cucumbers, potatoes, corn, peaches, and peppers. This time of year, they are growing and selling lots of fresh lettuces and greens, including collards, turnips, kale, and broccoli, plus a variety of herbs. 

To the great disappointment of many, what they're not selling much of this time around are citrus fruits. For that, we can blame the historic snowfall that mesmerized us all back in January. While it was visually delightful, it was disastrous for citrus crops. That's why you're not seeing the locally grown satsumas that are usually abundant. Those small, tangy fruits are hugely significant to the farming economy in Baldwin County, and they are also a big expectation for many wintertime visitors.

"They're very disappointed when they come in looking for them, and we don't have them," says Michelle. "And it hurts us, too," adds Alescia, "because satsumas, along with pecans, are usually our main seller during the holidays."

The busiest time of year for them is June, Michelle says, when more crops are in, and schools are out. But the Loxley Farm Market is always open year-round, and it continues to diversify to attract a wider range  of customers. 

The open-air structure, which is wooden with a concrete floor, is rustic but tidy. The original tables, built and put in place 30 years ago, when Michelle was just four years old, hold brightly colored vegetables and fruits. Shelves hold specialty jar goods like jams, jellies, salsas, and relishes while coolers along the perimeter of the space contain cheeses, wild-caught fish and shellfish, and farm-raised proteins like beef and chicken.

For most of their business's  lifespan, they'd been somewhat in the shadow of a better-known fresh produce business less than a half mile up the busy road. The nearby Burris Farm Market was already well established when the Loxley Farm Market sprang up. Burris', which was larger, more visible from the road, and had a popular bakery inside, closed almost two years ago. Its site will soon be home to a Wawa convenience store.

Alescia and Michelle say they've certainly seen more customer traffic since Burris closed, but they don't make a direct connection. Overall, they say, there doesn't seem to have been much crossover. 

"His business was more tourist-driven, and tourists saw it first on their way down to the beach. Stopping there became a tradition for a lot of people," says Alescia. "It's the locals who have kept our lights on."